aged by Englishmen,
where earthenwares were made after the English fashion. We shall refer
presently to the survival or revival of the older styles of pottery and
porcelain, but the English influence was undoubtedly paramount, with one
or two notable exceptions, down to 1850, or even later. England itself
witnessed a notable development of its pottery manufacture, which became
more and more aggregated in that district of North Staffordshire
designated emphatically "The Potteries," where, in spite of later
developments, from two-thirds to three-quarters of all the pottery and
porcelain made in the British Isles is still produced. This
concentration of the industry in England has resulted in a race of
pottery workers not to be matched elsewhere in the world, and while it
was the supply of cheap coal and coarse clay which first gave
Staffordshire its pre-eminence, that pre-eminence is now retained as
much by the traditional skill of the workmen of the district as by the
enterprise of its manufacturers.

[Illustration: PLATE IX.

Sevres. Pate-tendre, c. 1757, painted by Falot and Morin.

Meissen. May-flower vase mounted in ormolu. Pate-dure.

Meissen. Crinoline figure (Kandler), Pate-dure.

Sevres. Pate-tendre, c. 1756.]

While we must admire, from the economic point of view, the methods of
manufacture which have placed England in the first rank as a
pottery-producing country, inasmuch as they have brought within the
reach of the humblest domestic utensils of high finish and great
durability, it is impossible to say much for the taste or art associated
with them. Neatness, serviceableness and durability, English domestic
wares undoubtedly possess in a degree unknown to any earlier type of
pottery, but the general use of transfer-printing as the principal
method of decoration, and the absence of any distinctive style of
ornament, must cause them to take a low rank in comparison with the
wares of past centuries, when mechanical perfection was impossible and
rich colour and truly decorative painting were the chief distinctions of
the pottery of every country. The London International Exhibition of
1851 is generally supposed to indicate the low-water mark of art as
applied to industry; it should rather be regarded as marking the period
when many of the old handicrafts had been extinguished by the use of
mechanical appliances and the growth of the factory system, and when the
delight of men in these current develo